


Triakatorthoma

by RottenDeadite



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, Kung Fu, Martial Arts, Metaphysics, Wuxia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RottenDeadite/pseuds/RottenDeadite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about the Sermon of the Sword, game theory, quantum mechanics and nuclear physics, Redguards, Altmer, swordsmanship, the philosophy of war, learning, self-improvement, and the Princess Bride.</p><p>My main influences were Gu Long, Barry Hughart, and Kirkbride.</p><p>There is a fair complement of made up words.  You may find it useful to have an extra tab open to Google things.  Also it starts up a bit slower than I'd like.  Stick with it, please.</p><p>And I'm not going to hand you everything.  Some deduction will be needed.  A healthy knowledge of Elder Scrolls Metaphysics can't hurt.  Study your Lessons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Commencing

## Commencing

For the first time in 11 months, Feihyon opened his eyes. The winds were calm that day, and the sands did not sting too badly. He looked because he decided it was necessary, and it was necessary because if you stoke the fires of violence long enough, you will learn to recognize its smoke.

The smoke rose in the distance, dark and swaying lazily in the heat. At its base, Feihyon saw the glimmering of over-light and the hellish red of magefire flickering through the village.

The wind started up again, this time furious and biting, carrying the smell of smoke and now the sounds of screaming. Feihyon closed his eyes and took that hour's breath.

 

In the shadow of the black cloud, dressed in black robes, Sisathion spat black words under his breath, scraping away the last of the blood from his sword. He loved glass weapons during a fight. Right up until the very end, when they had to be cleaned. And he swore the Men here in the desert had thicker blood than anywhere else in the world. Or perhaps it was made thick by the sand. The dry, blasted, wind-beaten sand for which Sisathion could not summon enough curses. High Field Syntagma Duoth would want to remind him of the superiority of Altmeri Moonstone in such environs, but Sisathion would hear none of it. On the day he learned the first position of the First Flame there was glass in his hand, and every day that followed.

And so of course here came the pompous idiot, a rolling hill of muscle, red-drunk with his two-handed axe coated in gore. "Sisathion! These thin-arms fight like your mother ruts!" Duoth shouted, laughing with every tooth in his head.

"You are certain that none survived?" Sisathion grumbled as he sheathed his blade. "Not a one of them slipped away while your Mer busied themselves with the spilling of fluids?"

"None escaped, and do not worry yourself with it. Men are nothing. Perhaps you have spent too long in your womb-spaces and can no longer tell a dog from a demon? My Mer do not labor with the same disadvantage."

Sisathion could see that Duoth's soldiers certainly lacked any concern for their enemies, despite the fact that there were still a non-zero amount of Altmer corpses, scattered as they were among the bodies of Redguard Men still waiting to be thrown on the pile and stripped of their dignities. And so far, no one had found whatever treasure these warriors had given their lives to protect.

Duoth stepped too close, and rested one plated finger the size of a sausage on Sisathion's forehead. "How much is your quantity, philosopher? Where will you find your string of ears?"

Sisathion gestured with one thumb to the barn behind him. The door swung wide in the hot breeze, and Duoth caught a glimpse of the carnage inside. Once he stood in the entrance, he gaped at the full scope of the newly-christened slaughterhouse.

"You'll not find a corpse-pile, I'm afraid," Sisathion said casually as Duoth stumbled back from the stench of filth and death and terror. "They just fell where they stood."

Duoth stammered a moment before regaining his composure. "I've seen the wounds before... This is scale-skill killing! Where did you learn this evil?"

Sisathion heard the tone in his voice. The last few tense months of travel had been the overture to the song that they were about to write.

"No cold-veined creature of Nirn knows these skills, grunt. Nor any son of mortal-birth." He had not fully ended his Pneumansu cycle, so his words became heavy and his breathing grew sluggish when the cycle regrew.

The head of Duoth's axe hit the ground and the tightening of his grip made the leather on its throat complain. "Prove it, then," he growled. "Show me your innocence."

An ignorant warrior would assume that Duoth's immense size made him slow. Surely the strength required to lift such a gigantic weapon warranted some sacrifice in speed? Sisathion was not a warrior, nor was he ignorant. With his hand on his glass sword's pommel, he turned to face the High Field Syntagma, and as he slowed, the world slowed with him.

Duoth's first technique was the Kagouti Nod, a charge that ended with a horizontal sweep of his axe at just the right height to catch anyone trying to duck, leap or dodge to either side. A foolish enemy would block it and be knocked to the ground, his sword or shield broken. A smart enemy would avoid it by leaping back, and the Kagouti Nod flowed into the Silver Waterfall for just such an enemy.

Instead, Sisathion stepped into the swing. His left hand at waist height, he reached up, caught the axe's handle, and turned to the right, and the axe swung over his head as Duoth stumbled past him.

Behind him, Duoth heard the crack of super-heated air and felt a sting in his ankle. His next step did not finish the way it usually did, and he knew he'd lost the use of that foot. He turned, ignoring the pain, and watched through sand-turned-glass snowflakes as Sisathion, only a few feet away, slowly sheathed his sword once more.

"The Gentleman's Fast Salute is the third stance," he recited, gazing at the new puddle of molten sand cooling between them.

Duoth did not wait for him to finish. His thrust was an obvious feint, and Sisathion did not bother to dodge as the axe barely grazed his coat. Duoth's body put its strength behind the spin and release of Mending the Broken Clock, and when Sisathion wasn't there, Duoth moved fluidly into Divided Blind Past, because he knew that behind was the only place Sisathion could be. He smirked as he watched his axe split the priest's head in two.

But then he saw a light that made his eardrums scream, and the world blurred, and his axe slid into the sand before him, and Sisathion spoke again.

"Stationary Movement is the sixth stance."

"I killed you!" Duoth roared, head spinning, his eyes focusing just enough for him to make out Sisathion standing before him, unharmed, gold-trimmed robes rippling in the hot wind, eyes downcast. "What are you looking at?" the warrior hissed, his voice slurred.

"I watch the shadow of the future. I stand and face the crest and at the highest point I turn to become the antiphase." For the last time that day, Sisathion drew his sword. "This is the Kairokuma, the formless stance."

"Devil!" Duoth screamed. He was not devoid of self-control, because a warrior of his quality is never without discipline, but he threw away his desire to live with one final blow.  
Sisathion never granted him the chance to prepare it. Instead, in the space of a word, he employed Opening Four Red Doors And Eight Red Windows.

High Field Syntagma Duoth's armor cracked imperceptibly in thirty-two places, and through those hair-thin fissures sprayed a fine mist of blood. Duoth stumbled, dropped his weapon to the ground, and fell to his knees, his wounds hissing as his body released the pressure of his life into the dry desert air. His eyes went wide, then unfocused, vacantly staring at the unseen.

Sisathion stepped away. His left arm twitched once, and the blood from his blade was flung onto the sand. Proper blood, he thought. Royal with the stock of the Gods and too good for this cursed mortal dirt. Now clean, his sword was re-sheathed, and Sisathion looked for the hoods of their healers.

He watched as Duoth's red-spray gurgled to a dangerously slight trickle. He watched as their healers bathed the High Field Syntagma's kneeling body in their restorative lights and muttered their holy prayers. He watched as their leader's breathing began again. When his eyes fluttered with comprehension, Sisathion knelt down, looked into them, and said: "Bear witness to the knowledge of dead Mer long thought lost."

 

The wind was howling, and Feihyon did not hear them. It beat down on his back, blasting his bare, sun-leathered skin with sand, and he did not smell them. His eyes ever-closed, he did not see them.

But his bones heard their Sword Tremor like a locust-call; a battalion still flushed with the afterglow of violence. Nearly three hundred Mer, some louder than others, all just background hiss compared to the thudding ultra-gain of their leader, who walked at the head of the swarm. He had not heard such a Tremor in decades.

"Are my eyes...?" Sisathion said to no one in particular. He stopped, and the battalion stopped behind him. He couldn't see much in the sand storm, but what he could see made little sense.

"Perhaps it's another guardian?" Duoth shouted as he drew near, his body language turned submissive now that he could walk again. They had to yell over the noise of the winds, their voices muffled by their salvarelungs, their vision poor from the thick, dark green bug-eyed lenses. They could barely make out the shape of the stranger, sitting atop a sharply-sloped dune in the middle of the desert.

"No, there's nothing beyond here," Sisathion replied. "My superiors furnished me with a panchromatic taken from a Sunbird in exo-mundian orbit. If we kept walking we'd reach Sentinel but this eight-cursed desert would put us in Aether first. I think it's a statue. Nothing could live out here. Nothing alive could look like that." Shriveled. The body was too thin to capsule a spirit.

A servitor approached from behind, clutching a device to his chest, trying to protect the delicate mechanism from the sand. "My lord," he said, struggling to keep standing as his feet sank into the sand. "The kopisimeter is reporting some unique readings."

Even over the howling winds, the tiny brass box's clicking was audible. Actinic measurements were far stronger here than in the village. Sisathion cupped his hand over the meter's needle, watching it jump and quiver, and then it pegged.

Suddenly, the wind calmed, genuflecting into a light breeze, temperate and almost refreshing.

The three Elves stood pensively for a moment.

"Give me a dozen archers," Sisathion said.

He studied the corpse while the line formed. It had not moved; a dark brown lotus in the bleach-white sand, wreathed in raging haze.

 

Feihyon felt the stress of their yelling. Perhaps their voices were muffled, probably through masks, he assumed, which they would wear to protect them from the sand and the wind. So he stopped the wind for them. It took very little effort.

They were Elves. Altmer by their talk, now that he could hear them clearly. They were forming a line now, with a handful of Mer. He heard the bow limbs creak, the strings tightening. He gauged the strength of the archers from the sound of their myosin strain. The order was given, the strings released. He listened to the cry of the arrows as they fell towards him.

He opened his eyes, then. Looking down, the arrows were clutched in his hand. He released them, and watched the arrows slowly tumble down the face of the dune, back to their owners.

 

"Yes, well..." Duoth said slowly.

"Tell your men to form a perimeter around him," Sisathion muttered. "Keep a distance of twenty meters. The combat mages should shape their hands for lightning, the healers for limb and organ restoration. Mystics and Illusionists are to be given crossbows and put at the back of the line. His mind will be too strong and he won't need his eyes."

"All for one Man?" Duoth asked. "So he knows some tricks. Put your sword in him and take whatever treasure he's guarding."

"No," Sisathion shook his head. "This Man is the treasure. Let us appraise the color of his riches before we run him through."

 

Feihyon languidly watched as they encircled him. They kept a respectful distance, but their trembling betrayed their nervousness. They had not fought a Man like him, and it was unlikely they ever would again. When the circle was complete, the arrows were notched, cranequins geared, blades drawn and spells preluded. They had made for him a temenos bordered with death, and his work came striding towards him from the front.

Sure enough, it was an Altmer, masked in a salvarelung and dressed in robes Feihyon knew quite well.

"Thalmor," he greeted the Mer.

"Ansei," Sisathion answered.

"Very good," Feihyon smiled, his skin cracking with the effort. His voice was almost gone, nearly a whisper. He began to lend it strength, and it grew. "But I no longer teach violence. I am so sorry."

Sisathion stared at the husk. The green tint from his mask made the Man's skin almost black. He barely breathed, but his voice was growing stronger with every word. He sat cross-legged, nearly naked but for a tattered pair of cloth trousers as sun-bleached and tan as the sand that almost covered him from the waist down. His head was bald, but his thin beard was long and white as kwama silk. How could he manifest any skill at all?

"What makes you think I desire a lesson?" he asked.

"It is all anyone wants from me," the Man answered. "Knowledge is all I have to give."

"I'd have your nymic, Redguard," Sisathion asked as his mask's filters hissed vapor.

"I am Feihyon the Dreaming Lotus. I am the son of Keiying and the student of Yui, one who sits under the Eternal Spinning Tiger."

"I admit it: I have come all this way for a lesson, Keiying-son," Sisathion said.

"I no longer teach violence," Feihyon repeated.

"Many people have died beneath me for my effort. Honor their sacrifice."

"Death does not exist."

"Pain exists."

Feihyon smiled again. "You know better."

"I can make you teach me your swordsmanship," Sisathion insinuated, one hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Show me your face," Feihyon said.

Sisathion thought a moment, then shrugged and lowered his hood. His salvarelung hissed and spat as he unbuckled it and cast it aside, and he stood there, squinting briefly in the blistering glare. His face was aristocratically sharp, his golden eyes clever, his skin fair, his hair light. He stared down into the dark brown eyes of a Man who was living by will alone, a Man who could see far more of the Elf than what was there.

Feihyon closed his eyes again. "No. You can't."

Sisathion put his back to the Man then, his hands clenched, but his face was blank and controlled. Sisathion's Pneumansu told him the Redguard's Sword Tremor was radiating an inch above his skin, which was impossible. He knew he could not sense the full extent of the Man's power because it is impossible to see the dawn from the center of the sun. "I can pay you," he muttered over his shoulder, after a moment. "I can give you food and water, riches, power, women..."

"You already know that I have no need for the temptations of Nirn. Do you think yourself capable of seducing the desireless? Altmer, do you think I have not noticed that you sheathe your sword on your right?" The last few words had a trace of anger in them. Sisathion wondered if there was an opening there.

Sisathion smirked, regaining some of his confidence, "In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits." At his signal two of his assistants brought a folding chair and a guarskin umbrella. The chair was positioned to one side, so the Man would have to turn his head to read Sisathion's expression, and the umbrella positioned so only Sisathion could enjoy its shade.

The Altmer sat and crossed his legs before taking a sip of water from his flask. "With your grace, I will propose the conditions. I will learn from you your sword-skills, your Pneumansu techniques, and your stances, should they will prove useful. You can give them to me, or I can take them. Either way, I will win." He paused, waiting for a reaction. Seeing none, he continued. "Since you have no desire for anything within my power to give, you cannot be rewarded, and therefore you cannot win. Agreed?"

"No," the almost-corpse answered. "I will win when I teach you something you cannot learn."

"Very well. Name your prize for victory."

"My prize...?" Feihyon paused for a moment. "My prize will be given to me, by me, and revealed only to anyone who is not here."

"This is going to be a difficult contest if you keep answering in riddles."

"Nothing easy is worth gaining," the Man answered.

Sisathion nodded. He leaned back, turning to Duoth at the bottom of the dune. "Get comfortable!" he yelled.

While an exasperated Duoth barked orders to his command squad to set up camp, Sisathion turned his attention back to the sun-dry fossil.

"So tell me, Redguard," Sisathion began in a conversational way. "In what city sewer cowered the homeless bitch from whose teat you were weaned?"

"Our duel begins, then," Feihyon said.


	2. Kwoon, the First Form

### Stance 1: Unity, the Absence of Flaw

Born in the shadow of the golden domes of Rihad, Feihyon was the son of Keiying, a skilled and well-respected shipwright who built jihazi for the local Abacean Longfin fishermen. Like his father and his father's father, Feihyon was taught the stances of the Alik'r at an early age, but unlike most he showed a rare and ingenious talent with the blade. One of Feihyon's happiest childhood memories was riding in his father's telpherriage on the way down to Ansei Racca's kwoon every morning. He watched the city's foreign visitors with wide eyes, listened to their strange tongues, marveled at their odd clothing and culture. Racca was a tough but knowledgeable teacher, and refused to favor Feihyon despite his wealthy father's reputation. On the way back home, the gentle rocking of the telpherriage as it traveled over the cobblestone streets, the clicking sparks of the drivecable, and the smells of foreign cuisine would often coax him into near-sleep, where the movements of that day's lessons would dance behind his eyes.

Each weekday was spent in practice. Each weekend was spent following his father through the streets of Rihad, donating food and clothing to the homeless or building new houses for victims of the annual Brenna River flood. Every new season brought a new review, and Feihyon passed them with flying colors. Excited and eager to celebrate, Keiying often reminded him: "A good captain does not all the credit take," and he refused to acknowledge his son's success until Feihyon listed all the ways his friends and family had helped him improve.

And yet in spite of all best intentions, Feihyon still had a deep-set streak of rebelliousness. "A good sail with a bad thread," his father would mutter whenever he was caught.

One day during his tenth season, as he sat down for his lunch, he watched Ansei Racca duck into a vine-covered arbor in the kwoon's practice garden to speak to a golden-robed man with an unfamiliar face. Feihyon's Lodestone technique was quite advanced by this point, and he barely bent the grass as he silently slipped between the bushes. There, crouched behind the ginseng, he heard the two men speak.

"I'll not speak of the future," Racca was saying, "and it may not amount to a dram of dirt. But on this day, if you were to ask me, I would not agree." His arms were crossed tight around his chest, his head lower than the monk's, which spoke to the nature of their relationship.

"And I would not suggest it today," the monk answered. "But we have all seen him while in animoccular meditation, and so we are confident." The hazy light that filtered through the flowers glinted off the monk's bald, tattooed head, but Feihyon could not quite see his face. He was sure he was one of the monks from the cloistered temples that dotted the mountains north of Rihad. What business could he have with Ansei Racca?

"Soon," the monk continued. "We will trust your judgement on the specifics."

The monk handed Racca a slender red box, and Feihyon saw a language carved on its surface but he could not discern the meaning. The two men left, still talking, and Feihyon stayed behind, the memory of the box a fishook in his mind. It stuck deep in him, that unscratchable itch. And several sleepless nights later he crept out of his bedroom window, down adobe walls and over redshell roofs, and slipped through the midnight. Racca's office window was open, the box just beneath it, and Feihyon had only been gone fifty minutes by the time he brought the box to the safety of his bedroom, his heart pounding.

Its seal was already broken, so opening it was almost not a choice. Inside were two scrolls. The larger was... difficult to look at, and Feihyon's hand itched whenever he put his hand near it, so he left it alone. The smaller scroll was filled from end to end with fine, terse handwriting:

"When their strike is hard, our body is soft, and their blow sinks into us like cotton. For the next strike our body is hard like steel, and their bones shatter. When the blade enters our body we welcome it as lovers and offer no resistance, and so it passes through the empty spaces. With perfect control we do not bleed. It does not grieve us to kill, for death does not exist."

Feihyon recognized the lyrics of the Ephemeral Feints, and though his hands shook terribly he carefully copied every word and returned the scroll case to his Ansei's chambers before the first utei bell.

The next three days were difficult. Feihyon would wake early in the morning and practice from the Ephemeral Strikes. At the kwoon he was self-conscious and fearful that Ansei Racca would somehow discover his transgression. His legs and arms turned weak. His sword would not listen to his hand. Real or imagined, he always felt the eyes of his peers on him. When he returned home he would make to throw the copy away, furious at himself for acting so irrationally, angry at his own guilt, but the image of the red box always crept into his mind unbidden, and he would lie awake at night, memorizing the lines, trembling with excitement and terror.

Four days after stealing the forbidden knowledge, during dueling practice, Feihyon was paired with Saiyu, a poor farmer's boy from the border village. Feihyon was so distracted that he allowed Saiyu to penetrate his Sliding Palm sword defense. With the sudden realization that he was about to be wounded, Feihyon reacted without thinking and spun, legs in the Twisted Knee formation, and Saiyu's sword slid home into Feihyon's scabbard. It was a picture-perfect recreation of the Lover's Disarm from the Ephemeral Feints.

The entire practice yard stopped and stared, for they could not recognize the stance. Ansei Racca quickly took pity on the poor student and called him into his office.

Feihyon knew he had been discovered. As much as he feared his punishment, he was surprised to feel a sense of relief. His face burning, he ran back to his Ansei's office.

Racca was staring out of his window, his back to the door, arms folded. "Kneel to receive instruction," he muttered.

Feihyon knelt on the wool rug and bent his head. He was certain he would receive a beating, but his Ansei's disappointment would hit the hardest.

"Our greatest student had a love of thieves," Racca began. "And whether it was wise or not, we took the Ansu-Gurleht's recommendations to heart." He turned, sat on the edge of his desk and looked down at his student. "So when a student wishes instruction, he sometimes must enter as a thief. The best lessons, I'm told, are those that are stolen before they are taught. Are my words clear to you?"

"No, Ansei," Feihyon replied, realizing that he wasn't in as much trouble as he'd first thought.

"Did it not strike you as odd that the scroll case was located so conveniently beneath my open window?"

Feihyon glanced up, and Racca's expression told him that the moment was more serious, less dangerous. He began to relax.

"The Ansei priests under the Eternal Spinning Tiger will tell you that a strange kind of thievery is sometimes wise. They will tell you that you must reach heaven by violence, as the Ansu-Gurleht has taught them, but I am not so sure. Then again," he shrugged, "I am not as enlightened as they. After all, they work with the microforce of Sword Tremor."

After a moment of thought, Racca continued. "In my mind the lesson is this: insolence is its own punishment. These past few days have been fear-drenched and tortured. You've barely slept. Your practice suffers. You suspect your friends. You are afraid because you stole, and your life worsened. That is the consequence of selfish action, Feihyon, and that is the lesson you must take with you as you learn the Ephemeral Feints. As you gain in power and ability, you will hear temptation's oration. Remember these past few days then, and you will know how to act."

"I am to sit under the Eternal Spinning Tiger?" Feihyon asked in disbelief.

Racca gestured, and Feihyon stood at attention, but Racca patted him on the shoulder, saying, "Ease yourself, son. You're not my student now. Yui under the Eternal Spinning Tiger claimed you as his when you showed your first stance from the Ephemeral Feints, and so you have done, and so do I send you. I would've preferred you waited for me to present the scroll to you myself, but fate has decided otherwise, and so my disappointment has no matter."

"Then... they wanted me to steal the scroll?"

"I don't know, Feihyon. Priests of the Shehai have their own ways, and many of them make little sense to me. Perhaps you will understand them better. Learn all their best winning moves, but remember that while a ship's strength is in the backs of its rowers, the captain holds the course on his tongue."

Feihyon stood back a moment. His Ansei looked different, care-worn and old. So he left the kwoon with tears in his eyes, and returned home to tell his father the news. For his father's sake he did not cry though he wanted to, for once he entered the temple he would not return for many years.

 

"The Ansu-Gurleht. Pah!" Sisathion spat the taste of the title from his mouth. "Pretender God. Mutant. Criminal."

"Also an excellent swordsman." Feihyon's amusement was subtle, but present.

"My people search for him even now, as we speak." The Thalmor priest leaned back in his chair. "We have evidence that he is not dead, as his people would have us believe. When we find him, his death will come slowly."

Feihyon's brow furrowed for a moment. "Ideally, does all death not come slowly?"

"You know what I mean," Sisathion gave the Man a dark look.

"Shall I continue?"

Sisathion waved his hand dismissively and gazed off at the horizon.


	3. Temple, the Second Form

Eternal Spinning Tiger temple was a three-day walk from Rihad, and in observance of tradition Feihyon walked it alone, through grasslands and up the long path that wound its way up the side of the Corten Mountains. The mist was thick like a brick this time of year, and contrived to veil the thousand-foot drops that would take Feihyon's soul if he strayed but a little from the path. Eventually he reached a flimsy suspension bridge that spanned a yawning cleft before a sheer wall of white rock. As he began to cross, the mists parted, and standing silently at the center was a young unarmed monk, and while Feihyon could not make out his face below his conical sugegasa, he seemed to be about Feihyon's age.

Feihyon stopped and waited, the bridge swaying gently beneath their feet.

"My name is Janis. You'll have to duel me if you want to progress," the monk said.

"I am Feihyon. I am a student under the Eternal Spinning Tiger."

"Not yet."

Feihyon ran forward, calming and centering for the first duel of his life. Trying to throw off his opponent, he skipped the first few stances of the Rock Splitting Fist form, heading straight into the short, straight punches of the Lever Movements. He knew the tenuous footing on the bridge would keep him from using the Leopard's Tail Kicks, so his goal was to end the duel as quickly as possible with strong, powerful strikes that left little room for defense.

With one hand Janis swatted away every strike as though he were languidly waving away a buzzing fly. Feihyon pressed forward using Bending Knee Turning Ankle techniques, trying to confuse Janis, hoping to disrupt his balance, but the young monk's feet danced and rolled in eye-twisting patterns. At the last punch, he pulled gently at Feihyon's wrist, pulling him slightly off-balance. Janis turned around, opening Feihyon's central line with a well-placed elbow strike and when he turned again he struck with a single open palm.

Feihyon felt a twisting blast of energy hit his chest like a charging bull, and he stumbled back three yards, his feet slipping on the bridge's wooden planks. The bridge creaked and groaned from the expulsion of energy, and Feihyon looked down in shock to find a hissing palm-shaped hole in his banyan. His chest felt like it was on fire, and suddenly he feared for his life. He reached for his sword, but before he could pull it from its sheath Janis was there in a flash, and his kick slammed the sword back home.

Feihyon stumbled back and realizing his mistake he stood at attention, cupped his fist and bowed. "Ansei Janis, I humbly apologize for my offence. One should never air his sword before an unarmed opponent."

Janis grinned then, and returned the salute, saying: " _Ra Gada den go!_ Good! I applaud your adherence to decorum in the face of danger."

His next few words were interrupted by the sound of snapping ropes and shattering wood. The force of Janis' blow had weakened the already frail bridge, and it lurched alarmingly as the tower at one end broke and leaned into the gorge.

Janis didn't have time to speak, only to act. Grabbing Feihyon roughly by the arm, he leaped off one load cable and soared into the air, his opponent in tow. At the apex of his jump he turned and kicked Feihyon solidly in the ribs. The two young men rocketed apart to opposite ends of the chasm just as the bridge gave one final groan and surrendered to gravity.

Feihyon landed roughly and watched as Janis glided effortlessly to the ground at the downhill edge of the abyss nearly fifty yards away.

Feihyon stood up, rubbing his aching chest. "Is there another way around?" he shouted.  
Janis merely laughed, and pulled off his hat and tossed it across the chasm. As it spun through the sky he vaulted from the edge and ran sideways across the rock wall, springing into the air again at the end. Like a dandelion seed he floated down, and with a flourish he snatched his hat out of the air as he landed next to Feihyon.

"How long a time have you been a student under the Eternal Spinning Tiger?" Feihyon gasped, having forgotten entirely about his injury.

Janis shrugged and scratched his head in thought for a moment. "I secluded on Heart's Day just passed."

"Not six months!" Feihyon exclaimed. "And yet your Lodestone technique is flawless!"

"Far from flawless, my friend," Janis laughed his infectious giggle. "Why else do you think I would be delegated to matching with new recruits? Come with me, and we will descry these secrets together."

 

"He could've killed you with a single stroke," Sisathion chuckled. "You escaped by luck alone."

"True," Feihyon agreed. "But my life was never in danger. In a formal duel, one should never kill his defeated foe."

"No?" Sisathion arched an elegant eyebrow. "How else would he have prevented you from taking your revenge the moment his back was turned?"

"A man with honor would do no such thing."

"You could return, challenge him again, strike him down."

"Why should one fear that which has proven harmless?"

"Then he should have killed you for having the audacity to challenge him."

"I think the nature of the duel is lost to you," Feihyon said. "A true duelist wishes for defeat. What is the goal of the Nagarana?"

"We strive to achieve the ultimate power."

"Self-improvement, then? Such a thing requires learning. The true lesson is only taught to the loser, and it must be divined, for a loss is just an arrow pointing you in the wrong direction. Knowledge is the arrow diametric."

"You can learn much from victory as well."

"Victory merely confirms what you already know," Feihyon continued. "So you have learned nothing. Let your opponents live, and they may return one day with more skill, and with some luck they will condescend to teach you their lesson."

"But the threshing of mortality is the supra-onus of every warrior!" Sisathion sputtered.

"Shall I continue?"

Sisathion just sighed and grimaced.


	4. Master, the Third Form

Eternal Spinning Tiger temple was a collusion of eclectic buildings, ancient structures carved directly into the mountain and intricate wooden pagodas built without hammer or nail. And everywhere fluttered the banners, proclaiming the names of masters long past and their aphorisms. While he wore the shaved head and wheat-robes of an initiate, Feihyon's instruction consisted mostly of the primary thoughts. He spent days perched atop high isolated rocks, forgoing sustenance, breathing in the Thermal Diffusion technique. He studied the principles of Sword Tremor and the Inner Heaven Stare that allowed him to observe it, and after learning to listen to the resonance of his own bones he awoke to a new world filled with the buzzing of the Tremor. But he mostly spent his time learning the Ephemeral Feints with his fellow students, no more than twenty-four in total.

The masters under the Eternal Spinning Tiger lived permanently cloistered atop their narrow two hundred and two foot tall king towers that surrounded the temple, each tower an eight-sided obelisk two feet in diameter. Mirror-smooth, and cut from a single slab of black stone, each edifice exactly wide enough for one master to sit upon. The masters numbered eight, and the days numbered four and sixty before Feihyon was allowed to visit his master. He did this by scaling the adjacent thief tower; a daughter-obelisk two feet shorter than his master's. There the two assumed for the first time the divine roles of student and teacher.

Ansei Yui was an ancient paradox beyond value; his hair was a long, thin cloud but his body was a tightly coiled rope, and when he spoke the earth trembled and birds fell stunned from the sky. His robes were red and gold and perfect, his skin the color of clay, his Tremor the blazing beacon of the dawn. He waited until Feihyon had finished clawing his way up the obelisk, and after he'd had a chance to meditate for a moment Yui spoke, and this is what he said:

"From the moment we bring the Sword Tremor into our bones, our spirits and bodies quicken to be divided, and with time the two are drawn apart. As we near our death, the division widens as the two reach out to their mothers. Our bodies become the dirt beneath, our souls become the skies above, an inevitable horizon. What, then, is the worth of this skill?"

Feihyon thought on it and then answered thus: "Nothing, Ansei. And everything."

"What is the nature of the world?" Yui asked.

"I do not know, Ansei, for I have not yet seen it."

"I have seen it, Anhai, and its countenance is thus: At its edges are its teeth. Between the teeth is the tongue, and we are the words that rest upon it, like dust to be swallowed. Above us the encephalos, below the soma. The enlightened are those uneaten by the world, and I may be counted among their number, for I was hidden once. But never again, so that I may live once more in glorious uncertainty."

Feihyon could not discern a question so he did not speak.

After a time, Ansei Yui spoke again. "What is the role of the student?"

"To surpass his master," Feihyon answered. That one had been taught to him by Ansei Racca, and the memory stung.

"Our greatest student murdered us so that we may be reborn. Then he said to us: 'We must not act and speak as if asleep.' Keep these words inside of you but do not seek their meaning. Return in one week." And so began their relationship, and so it was since.

 

It was during the winter months that disaster struck all of Nirn when the two moons, Masser and Secunda, left the night sky. In the ensuing chaos, the masters met under the Eternal Spinning Tiger and decided as one to accelerate the instruction of their students in preparation to meet whatever threat was growing. Feihyon's training became increasingly convergent, and individually altered to his strengths as his new master perceived them.

The days blurred together as his life slipped into a predictable and orderly schedule. At their altitude, the face of the seasons did not change much from spring to winter, and the passage of time became irrelevant. A portion of the daylight was dedicated to general practice in the courtyard with the rest of the temple's students, but the majority of their instruction turned to pairings, and Janis was chosen as Feihyon's partner. Ansei Yui told Feihyon: "Hear and forget. See and remember. Perform and understand." So the two learned to duel by dueling each other.

Together they learned to redistribute Sword Tremor to steer the energy of injuries away from the body. Feihyon's Lodestone technique grew so sophisticated he was soon running up the side of his Ansei's thief tower for their weekly conversations. Feihyon and Janis progressed so rapidly that they were selected to learn the Eight Pillars Sixteen Voids style. This required the two young men to stay seated for hours in huge boiling cauldrons filled with a soupy mixture of medicinal herbs which toughened their flesh and distorted their dance until their fingers cleaved rock and they laughed at sharpened steel.

During an instruction by his Ansei, Feihyon thought to ask about the three black gonfanon he had noticed standing in a small alcove in the temple.

"Those are the records of the Swordman's Chevisance, the path of the Triakatorthoma every true swordsman hopes to walk. The ultimate Tro Maai, as your people would call it."

"What language is inscribed upon them, Ansei? It is difficult to look at... And impossible to read."

"There are few who can. It is the language of my people, who are no longer and never were. The Triakatothoma was the Way of the Sword, of divinity through discipline, and it contained three cairns, three voids, three rewards, and its echo is still heard by your people in the Shehai Shen She Ru. The first is the absence of Flaws, the union of the Sword and Swordsman. The second is the absence of the Sword from the Hand. The third is the absence of the Sword from the Heart."

Ansei Yui's eyes were closed, but Feihyon could sense that he was waiting for a response. "Ansei: In the first cairn, what flaws are absent?"

"Flaws in technique."

Feihyon thought on this for a moment. "With flawless technique, the sword and its master are as one, and the sword is never gone from his grasp."

"Correct. The sword may take many forms, but it will always be a sword in the hands of the swordsman. That is the reward."

Feihyon's second question came quickly: "Is the second cairn the Shehai?"

Yui smiled gently. "Again, correct. To reach the second cairn is to learn to summon the Shehai, the Spirit Sword in truth. You will soon learn to create its totem, a reflection on the rippling waters, but that will be little more than a dying candle before the roaring detonation. Those who have reached the second cairn wield their souls and the Tremor as one, and this reward has not been seen in perhaps three thousand years."

"Then the third cairn, Ansei...?"

"The sword leaves the heart of the sword singer. He brings peace to the world. That is the pinnacle of swordsmanship, and the greatest void is the greatest reward."

"Have you formed a Shehai, Ansei?"

"Not in quite some time, Anhai, and truthfully I may never again, even if called to it. But I remember its sigil, and it appears thus..." With those words, a blue aura formed around the old monk, a slowly orbiting ring of one hundred thousand spinning fires, each flame a glittering blue crystal sword.


	5. Creation, the Fourth Form

One day, while Feihyon sat atop a nearby mountaintop and listened to the purring of the world he chose to be distracted by the movements of a water fairy. The tiny demon had been cornered by a spriggan and the little creature's darting and declivous strikes resonated within him, so over the next few months Feihyon remembered them in his meditations. His Lodestone technique grew dramatically as he integrated the Tremor of the water fairy into his own, and after a time he began taking to the air as though he weighed less than a wisp of cloud, reaching the summit of his thief tower in one leap. His speed was so fast that he appeared to disappear into thin air, moving over great distances in the moments between the beats of a sparrow's wings. During his duels with Janis he would spend hours spinning and soaring in midair, never touching the ground, suspended in flight by the force of his own blade against his partner's.

When the twin moons returned to the night sky, the whole world celebrated, but the two students were so busy they barely noticed. Perhaps it was his streak of rebelliousness, or a sudden onset of egoism, but on that day Feihyon took this new set of skills as his own, and called it the Aetherial Flying Fae skill.

The next day was Feihyon's weekly guided meditation with his Ansei, but as he approached the king & thief towers Yui's voice echoed down from above.

"For every lock, a key..."

Feihyon watched as Ansei Yui suspended himself in midair, legs split with each foot's sole pressed against each tower, and slid down, his hands folded into two of the Secret Gates, the triangle at the heart of the second serpent. When he landed, he strode quickly towards Feihyon, and suddenly there was a scimitar in his hand, of a silver and violet metal unfamiliar to this kalpa. With a flash he was before him, attacking, and Feihyon was twisting through the unarmed movements of the Tetra-Peltiform. Within only three strokes Feihyon knew he was too slow to keep up, and chose to display the first movements of the Telepathic Steps from his own Aetherial Flying Fae skill, floating backwards, arms wide as a sail.

Yui pressed forward, but Feihyon somehow managed to stay an inch away from his master's blade. On the cliff behind them, a single scrawny pine tree clung tenuously to the edge, stretched far out into the empty air, trying to catch as much sun as it could in the shadow of the mountain. Feihyon landed gently on its outstretched trunk, looking to lure his teacher out into more dangerous ground where Feihyon's stances would give him some advantage.

Instead, Yui's next stroke sliced off a corner of the cliff, and a thousand pounds of rock and the tree fell, and Feihyon would have fallen with it if he had not leaped into the air again. Feihyon finally drew his sword as he sailed in an arc over his Ansei, parrying the sparks of Yui's Sword Tremor below him. He landed some yards away, and the two faced each other for a moment, each watching the others Tremor, looking for an opening.

Feihyon held his sword behind his back, standing straight, and extended an arm towards his Ansei, palm up.

His master replied by resting his sword held casually at his side, the tip of the blade's curved edge resting on the ground, one hand in the snake head formation. Then he lifted one foot a few inches, and when he brought it down it was with the thundering of a thousand lightning strikes. The force made a crater in the rock below his feet three yards wide and a foot deep, and in every direction the snowy peaks shook with fear.

In the wake of a mountain's terror, Feihyon held his stance.

Using his scimitar, Yui swept up a small rock from the shattered ground and balanced the stone carefully on its tip before spiraling the blade around his body and flinging the rock towards his student.

Feihyon barely had time to deflect it with his own sword before he found another rock spinning towards him, straight as an arrow. In the space of four volleys he realized his Ansei was aiming them in a specific pattern to encourage Feihyon to use the Aetherial Flying Fae's Whirling Eagle Formation.

Again Yui stomped his foot, and a cloud of rocks, dust, and pebbles rose up, suspending themselves in the air around him. His sword spun and twisted in an increasingly feverish pace, catching rocks and rifling them towards his student.

Soon Feihyon was dancing through the Formation automatically, and his blade found every stone on its own but for the Whirling Eagle Formation's sixteenth move, when Feihyon's blade was protecting his right, a stone came flying in from the left, and with a sharp crack the young man felt his collar bone shatter.

Then it was over. Yui performed the Adjournment and his Sword Tremor withdrew as the air-lodged debris around him reunited with the laws of gravity. He glanced down at the pain-crouched Feihyon as he walked back towards his king tower and said:

"When you lose, don't lose the lesson."

 

His injuries were quickly healed by the temple's Gray Priests, their fractionated Tremor-touch coaxing his body into re-knitting itself. In less than an hour he was working again, and Janis helped him work through the next seven days with focused intensity.

Ansei Yui announced his presence in the practice yard, his voice filling the mountains again:

"For every house, a door..."

They dueled again, the master and the student, blade against blade this time, and Feihyon's changes to the Whirling Eagle Formation proved effective. Ansei Yui's sword left his own hand many times that match as he used the Ninteen Styles of the Jade Maiden sword stance, striking at his student with palms and fists while the sword spun and danced around his body. It was during the thirtieth move of the Whirling Eagle Formation that Yui's fist struck Feihyon's Padomaic Linking Vessel, and Feihyon drowned in dysthought for half a day before he could be revived.

"For every song, a flute..."

Early in their next duel the last of the Whirling Eagle Formation survived the onslaught, and Ansei Yui moved on to testing the structure of Feihyon's Soaring Sky Dragon swordplay. To those students watching from the courtyard's approach the two duelists appeared as decisecond divisions of lightning across the yard, the thundering Sword Tremor cascading into a sizzling canopy of pale-blue haze. The duel did not end in an injury this time; Soaring Sky Dragon swordplay was one of the strongest skills in the Aetherial Flying Fae stance. But Feihyon was unable to match his Ansei's endurance, and after many hours of constant planar division Feihyon let out a cry for diffusiform. Student and teacher materialized on opposite sides of a courtyard now scarred dark with crosshatched burns. The Tremor field collapsed with a quivering groan of no-sound, causing the minds of the near untrained to regurgitate with entenedic profanities.

The duelists cupped their fists to each other in salute, and Feihyon waited until his master had turned to ascend his tower before he fell to one knee. Only the support of his sword kept him from collapsing. Janis ran to help his friend up, his Sword Tremor no more than a flickering glimmer.

"Stubborn idiot!" Janis scolded him after helping him limp to his sleeping mat. "You can't spend it all in a fight. Leave some to keep you alive!"

"I'm too slow, Janis," Feihyon said, his voice less than a whisper. "I need to be faster..." Then he slept.

 

"So he was teaching you in battle as well," Sisathion mused. "Interesting. Most instructors prefer to... well... instruct."

Feihyon opened his eyes again. "Ansei Yui had a very important lesson in mind," he replied with unfathomable patience. "By enduring his storms I found and patched the weakest boards, and so the hull grew stronger. More valuable is the secret treasure found unmapped."

The Altmer frowned. "Oh? And how much time does that waste?"

"I may soon ask you the same question."

Sisathion folded up the umbrella as Magnus began to set. His soldiers were setting up camp for the night, and the glittering of newborn campfires surrounded Feihyon on all sides.

"To base the energies of your stances on Tremor... it's odd. Why rely on something you can't fully visualize?"

"Through Pneumansu we accept the microatoma. Consciousness causes collapse, so this blind consumption must be done without thought. As we eat the Tremor we learn both its pace and its position. Pneumansu affords you insurmountable endurance, speed and control far beyond that of mortal men. Understand: your sail's canvas made from our threads."

"But what does Sword Tremor techniques offer you that Pneumansu techniques do not?" Sisathion said this with almost perfect casualness.

"By observing the wave we perceive the particle."

"And how does that work, exactly?"

Feihyon paused before answering. "As the fisherman watches the river he holds his spear ready. He knows that everything is entangled. Carve at the other and the one shall be harmed. Aim not at the target. You will strike true."

Sisathion nodded slowly. He sat very still, eyes unfocused from concentrated effort. Standing, he drew his sword, thought for a moment, and then swung, his sword a green flash. A faint cry of pain issued near a distant camp as a wound opened in the side of an unwary Thalmor soldier.

"I should have guessed," Feihyon shook his head. "The worth of your kind has always been hard to estimate." When Sisathion turned, Feihyon saw in his eyes a shine familiar. He had faced that glimmer before, and again he felt a nostalgic sort of cold fear. But his calculation of the Elf was gaining refinement.

"An excellent skill!" Sisathion exclaimed.

"Surely you are the new generation's greatest talent."

"No, please," Sisathion waved off the compliment as he sheathed his sword. "My skills are only so-so." But as he sat again, the fire was still burning in the center of his mind, and his fingers danced nimbly on the arm of his chair, betraying his mood.

"Shall I continue?"

Sisathion nodded, staring off into the distance.


	6. Refinement, the Fifth Form

When Feihyon woke after three days of troubled sleep, he refused food and drank only water, meditating continuously for two more days below a springmelt waterfall. When he finally stumbled back into the temple he stopped only to eat a bowl of rice before he found his friend Janis.

"I can't move fast enough, Janis," he said.

"Maybe you should try eating something of more substance," Janis replied, placing a bowl of grilled salmon in his friend's hands.

"I've played the scenario in my head again and again," Feihyon said while he chewed absentmindedly. "The conclusion is inescapable. Every duel is a story with my defeat already written on the last page."

"Good. Good. Learn from defeat. Steal the lesson and eat the knowledge. Eat some celery, also."

"There is no lesson here, Janis. There is only the certainty that I cannot improve."

"Ah, _hi mangai_ ," Janis sighed deeply. "Such tragic certainty is inescapable. Have a plum."

"What?" Feihyon stuttered as he realized he'd been eating steadily for the past few minutes. "No... No! What do you... What?"

"Why no plums?" Janis blinked innocently. "Good for digestion."

"Cruel, idiot thing!" Feihyon shouted. "Why can't you see what's happened? I can't improve! I have failed at our one and truest goal! An Ansei is limited by time, not ability!"

"I'm blind?" Janis laughed. "Such tragedy you feel, such weight, but you are blind to its cause. Am I a fool? You already know the problem, but you are too foolish to see it. You think me cruel? The cruelty is your own, for you carry the anchor and dwell instead on the heaviness of your soul." He laughed again, genuinely amused by his friend's turmoil. "The weight does not exist, you dolt!"

"The weight...?" Feihyon said, rising to pace the courtyard in silence while Janis finished his food for him. "My defeat is my own doing, is that it?"

" _Ra Gada den go!_ " Janis applauded. "Truly without limitations is he who can see his hand in front of his face! When your path ends, retrace your steps and start from the beginning. To the basics you must go!"

Feihyon laughed, overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of relief. He sat next to his friend and accepted an offered fruit. "So what do I do, then?"

Janis winked with a grin full of plum. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

 

Late that night, Feihyon landed silently beside Janis's cot and gently woke him.

"I'm leaving," he said. "I need to go back to Rihad."

"What? Why?" Janis mumbled as he rubbed at the sleep in his eyes. "What for? You're not quitting, are you?"

"Of course not. I know what must be done now. It's nothing hard, but we have no blacksmith here. Come with me."

"Blacksmith...?" Janis's expression was sleep-blurred but curious.

"Yes, Janis, yes! My stances use straight attacks, precision strikes, yet I use a Yokudan scimitar. Did I ever tell you about the Imperials back in Rihad? I saw them every day, to and from school. They had straight swords, Janis! Straight. Swords."

 

The two men floated down from the temple, their Lodestone techniques so refined that they made the three-day trip in only two hours, leaping along the tops of trees.

"Do you think we'll be missed?" Janis shouted over the rushing wind.

"We've been under the Eternal Spinning Tiger for many years now," Feihyon answered. "We were forbidden to leave only during the first year, yet since that year I've not once given thought to returning home. I'm not sure what our masters will think."

Janis was quiet for some distance. Eventually the two men transitioned from the trees to the ground, and as they traveled across the plains North of Rihad Janis spoke once again.

"It is said: We are reborn on the day we first expose our bones to the Tremor," he said. "Perhaps our homes are interred in that kronopolis. We cannot return to them any more than we can tell the dragon how to wind his tail. Our histories are finished, dreams half-remembered, but we must cherish their lessons, even those that cause us anguish to recall."

He looked at Feihyon as they moved across the grasses, eagles flying close and low. "Some say that life is short, but I say that it is far too long. And we must live with the decisions we make for the rest of our lives."

 

They arrived in Rihad, skimming the tops of the thatched rooftops and scattering pigeons as the morning sun painted the city red. The blacksmith known as Lan had just performed the first waking strike on his anvil when he felt a sudden breeze behind him. When he turned he was startled to find the two young monks standing before his fire.

Feihyon stepped forward and cupped his fist. "Lan _shira_ , I am Feihyon, and this is my _ahndo_ , Janis. We come to you from under the Eternal Spinning Tiger to beg for hammer-make."

"I know you, Feihyon," Lan grumbled behind a smirk. "Or rather, I know your father, Keiying. I know him quite well. What can my fires mold for you?"

Feihyon recognized the smith, then. He was quite young when they first met, many years ago, but the blacksmith still kept his thick, dark beard combed wide across his broad chest. His bald head shone with sweat and his dark, twinkling eyes reminded Feihyon of the huge man's mischievous sense of humor and fierce sense of loyalty. The years had not been kind to him; Lan seemed far, far older than Feihyon would've expected.

"I need a sword. A straight one, Lan _shira_ , like the Imperials carry, but with the hilt of our cutlasses." Feihyon handed the blacksmith the sword he'd carried since his first day at the temple.

Lan turned the weapon over in his hands and frowned. "It's cheap steel, this. Looks old, but it's in good shape. Don't use it much up there, eh?" Lan smirked.

"Our weapons do not wear from use," Janis replied, bristling a little at the blacksmith's insinuation. "Not while we wield them."

"That's handy," Lan grumbled again. "A good skill to have. Don't teach it to everybody or I'll go out of business." His rumbling laugh was like a shifting mountain. "A longsword, eh? Not the usual order around here..." He placed Feihyon's sword down on his anvil and looked at it for some time, deep in thought.

"Yes, I'll bend this weapon for you," Lan said after a time. "A blade of orichalc, I think. And perhaps I have some stalhrim here, somewhere. They'll not likely turn eutectic, but if I run the fires hot enough... And the pommel... do I have that meteoric iron...?" He muttered to himself for some time before calling for his striker.

When the tall Nord appeared, Lan handed him a hastily-written note. "Take this to Gemelius and tell him I need his phlogiston singing-tubes. Run, boy!" He turned to Feihyon, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "Come back in two days. We will craft you a sword, my fine young Ra Gada. A sword to bring your family the glory they deserve!"

 

"Will we stay with your family?" Janis asked as they left the shop.

"No, I'll not burden them..." Feihyon hesitated, thinking of the look on his father's face when he told him the nature of his promotion to the Temple. "I have an uncle who runs an Inn. He'll put us up, I think."

The Inn of the Four Gardens was not the most expensive hotel in Rihad, but it was the largest. Consisting of six floors of sixteen-sided rings, a bustling tea house filled the bottom floor and stretched three stories up the sides of the central atrium. A pillar at every point of the hexadecagon flew the signed protection of each of the sixteen Old Families of Rihad as an attempt to keep the occupants safe from foreign invasion.

That protection had failed. The large round table that occupied the center of the tea house floor was occupied by a dozen Elves dressed in the golden mail of the Thalmor army. The usual noise of the tea house was somewhat more cautious for their presence, but the spiced smell of thick, intricate, mind-altering drinks was as strong as ever.

"It's fine," Feihyon replied to Janis's worried expression. "Don't draw attention to yourself." Though he seemed unconcerned, Feihyon was quite aware that their yellow monk robes stuck out in the crowd.

At Feihyon's gesture a waiter sat them at a table and took their order.

"Just tea, thanks," Janis replied. "And we'll need a room for the night."

Their tea arrived just as a commotion broke out in the center of the rotunda. Brave laughter from the Elves grew louder, bolstered by the drink their serving girl had brought them, renewed by the shriek she made as she dodged unwelcome hands. She shot a desperate look at the inn's owner, who stood in the shadow of a balcony and shrugged helplessly in reply.

While Feihyon did not understand most of what they said, he knew enough Altmeri to guess their taunts, the disparagements of her race and sex. He sighed, and cast a glance at Janis, who nodded with sympathy. Some words sound the same in every language.

Janis tore a length of cloth from his robe and began wrapping his hands in the Ra Gada pak technique.

"Do you think it will come to that?" Feihyon asked.

"I know the way of these things," Janis replied with resignation. "Perhaps she'll fight back. Perhaps a boyfriend will step in. A blow will be struck, perhaps several. You see that table over there?"

Janis nodded towards a table a dozen yards away. Six young Redguards, none older than twenty years. They held their heads over their teacups, but Feihyon saw them staring wide-eyed at their drinks, on the edges of their seats, tense and trembling with anger.

"They'll stand up," Janis continued. "They've never fought soldiers before, so they don't know the dirty tricks they teach you on the line. They won't know to watch for the belt needles, the weighted gloves, the boot blades. Why wait? Why not stand up? Why not act in the face of certainty? I'll not let Ra Gada blood be spilled by some pointy-eared Elf. Not while I'm in the room."

Janis stood, flexing his hands beneath the winding cloth that ran halfway up his forearms. "Stay back," he said, looking down at Feihyon, "if you do not wish to dirty yourself with the rolling of thieves."

"I am no thief," Feihyon answered, and then he rose. "But if we do not protect those who cannot protect themselves, then what is the worth of our skill?"

The two monks stood and watched the Elves for a moment, silent with thought.

Janis said: "There's a lot of them..."

Feihyon nodded. "In your kwoon, did you learn the Seven River Fans?"

"I'm better with the Whirling Midnight Zodiac Wheel."

Feihyon grunted an agreement, feeling his friend's Sword Tremor flare suddenly and erupt. He began his Pneumasu cycle, breathing the shimmering audric scintilla, and his own Tremor ascended with radiance. The iron spoons on their table sparked and spat.

Someone at the Thalmor table dropped a wine cup, an obvious invitation for the serving girl to bend over and clean up. But she was no fool, and when she took a step back she unintentionally gave the final insult. Altmeris curses were spat in anger and two of the soldiers stood. One grabbed her arm, the other drew his sword. It flashed golden sunlight as it fell. But a small ceramic saucer shattered against the pommel and the blade missed the girl and buried itself in a chair.

Then: silence.

Every eye in the house, Man and Mer, followed the saucer's parabola back to the two monks.

" _No gietra,_ " said Janis, flatly.

"No killing," Feihyon translated.

Tables and chairs were pulled away as the hotel's patrons put some space between the Elves and the monks, and as the two walked towards the center of the rotunda the word "ansei" fluttered through the crowd. The Thalmor soldiers, sobering rapidly, stood to meet them. Only one remained seated, cutting his dinner into tiny pieces, eating delicately, deliberately. Dressed in the same golden Elvish armor as the others, he alone wore a red sash across his right shoulder.

"I think I know where the rank sits," Janis whispered as they neared.

Feihyon addressed the soldiers, his voice calm but serious. "Leave, now. Leave for your castri, or find a brothel if you prefer it, but leave now and no less will be thought of you."

An Elf with limbs thick as trees grumbled: "Do I look like the make to follow the baying of a stray?"

Janis kept walking until he stood in front of an Elf easily a foot higher than he. A hair's width away, he bent his head back and looked the soldier in the eye.

"You already know my reply," Feihyon answered.

Janis, eyes locked with his enemy, grew a wicked grin.

 

Outside the tea house, nearby citizens of Rihad heard the commotion but their curiosity was reproached when a Thalmor soldier flew through the open doorway, slid across the dew-wet cobblestones, and slammed into the opposing brick wall with enough force to crater the ancient masonry.

Inside, the Thalmor were growing cautious. Two Mer were curled up on the floor, nursing ribs broken behind scale armor. Eight more surrounded the two Redguard monks, circling in an Altmeri Ring ambush formation. The Altmeri Ring used antipodal members to attack in unison, but the two monks stood with their backs together. When Janis expanded, Feihyon contracted, and the Whirling Midnight Zodiac Wheel formation eliminated blind zones as the two warriors breathed as one. When Feihyon defended Janis's right, Janis covered the opening on Feihyon's left. Four arms, four legs, one mind, one energy.

But the Zodiac Wheel was a static, defensive formation, so the Thalmor controlled the pacing.

"Can we outlast them?" Feihyon whispered over his shoulder.

"Not this many," Janis replied. "And we won't be able to stop them if they disperse to kill civilians."

Therefore Feihyon shouted "zhang-ga!" and with that signal the two monks broke their formation.

Feihyon worked quickly. The Tetra-Peltiform was enough to guard against the clumsy attacks of the relatively untrained soldiers, allowing Feihyon to create openings to attack into. After three moves he was able to strike four soldiers at once with the Burning Mist Palm, and they collapsed in pain, tearing at their hauberks, trying to stop the strange energy that scorched a palm-shaped hole straight through to their skin.

He turned to watch Janis dispatching the last of his four soldiers with the Two Moon Hammers technique, leaving a dozen fist-sized dents in the soldier's golden armor.

The two monks didn't hear the cheer that went up around them; they were staring across the table, concentrating on the last, highest-ranked Elf, who finished the last of his tea before he pushed back his chair and stood.

The Elf bowed with a flourish, and with a thick Altmer accent he said: "Elgerion, my nymic be. And you are...?"

Feihyon knew the magniloquent greeting hinted at a royal heart, and he gestured quickly at Janis to stand aside. "I am Feihyon, son of Keiying, student of Yui, one who sits under the Eternal Spinning Tiger." Cupping his fist in salute, he asked: "Would you prefer to collect your men here, or shall we dispense them outside?"

"I'm bored..." Elgerion yawned. With speed he flipped the round table on its edge as though it weighed less than a feather. From behind his palm sent it flying towards Feihyon, who ably struck back with the Fourth Impingement, shattering the table into splinters.

But Elgerion was just behind the table, having moved hidden behind it as it crossed the room, and through the explosion of wood he unleashed the elaborate, powerful attack he'd stolen the time to assemble: The first skull-crushing blow of the Last Ruinous Poem.

At first, Feihyon did not recognize it. But when Janis shouted: "Videnkrig!" he recognized the crouched posture, the extended arms, the hands held like claws of a crow. And though he had never dueled a Videnkrig practitioner, Ansei Yui had once told him the principles:

"Beware the war-art of ancient Aldmeris. A shadow that hugs the ground can never be lost."

Feihyon knew the clawed fingers would pierce his skull if he did not avoid the attack. The sudden assault was unexpected, and in a glimmer Feihyon realized his opponent expected him to retreat. But he did not have the time nor the space to pull back to form a new attack. His opponent would use that vulnerability, forcing Feihyon into a clumsy, poorly-formed defense that would be easy to break.

In that single blink of an eye Feihyon weighed his chances, and as his response he rammed the top of his forehead into the Elf's nose.

The attack had only a little strength behind it, but the shock made Elgerion stagger for a moment, more than enough time for Feihyon to leap back and prepare. He breathed deep as the splintered table rained down around them, watched the pulse of an artery in Elgerion's neck to find the rhythm of the Elf's heartbeat, listened to the Elf's breathing, and made his calculation in seconds.

Janis watched his friend's posture subtly change. "Do you have him?" he asked.

"I do," Feihyon replied, and his distant eyes lit up with Tremor flare.

Janis sat down into a chair some distance away, shaking his head and laughing to himself.

The tea house was silent as Feihyon stood in the Magnanimous Reception and watched Elgerion, crouched and circling, seeking an opening. He gave none, but instead observed the Altmer displacing his Tremor field, as one watches green algae curling in a ship's wake.

When the Elf struck from behind, Feihyon moved quickly away, but the Ephemeral Feints were designed to fight a sword-wielding enemy, not an unarmed opponent. To make matters worse, Elgerion's low stance concentrated hundreds of fast, piercing strikes at Feihyon's legs; bending down to parry or block would have thrown him off-balance. It seemed to be giving Feihyon quite a bit of trouble, until he employed the Telepathic Steps to avoid a close blow, sailing up and away to perch on a balcony above.

Elgerion stood, looking up, giving Feihyon a humorless grin as the crowd around them gasped and applauded. "Interesting technique. No ordinary monk are you."

"And you are no ordinary soldier, Elgerion. Tell me of this style you employ."

Elgerion performed his elaborate salute again. "The Last Ruinous Poem? It is said of the style: Stay low, to their fists avoid. Move fast, to their balance upset. Strike hard, to their flesh rend. Does it wish a lesson?"

"Perhaps," Feihyon laughed. "I think I have little choice but to attend."

"A tough choice is seen. Too much has already been taught. Worry not: the class will end soon." His thick accent made his threatening words difficult to discern.

"Will it?" Feihyon raised an eyebrow. "What if I seek further elucidation?"

"Come then," Elgerion's expression did not attempt to hold back his ominous intent as he gripped the back of a chair and raised it with one hand. "Let us brotherly embrace as I impart wisdom to your mind as thus." The chair creaked then, and shattered under his ferocious grip.

"Would you carelessly treat all your siblings like so?"

"It is but as sport among brothers, if you like, and the wounds are called ultra-sophiant. As we say: pain the best teacher be, but none wish to attend his class."

"Such cruelty must make you unloved amongst your brethren. You have my sympathy."

"Pah!" the Elf spat in impatient anger. "Float down, pest! Love is for lovers, not brothers! The younger must fear the elder!" He growled, his clawed hands quivering with red-eyed lust as he formed a murderous disposure.

Feihyon sighed, glancing casually around the tea house. "Why should I fear a mote of dust?"

As the Elf's eyes went wide, Feihyon descended from the balcony, arms wide, palms streaming with the Burning Mist. The two fought again, but this time Feihyon was on the retreat, heading backwards into the dining area below the balcony, and Janis directed onlookers to quickly clear tables and chairs so that the required space was made.

Elgerion's Last Ruinous Poem used straight attacks almost exclusively, but Feihyon's Telepathic Steps were linear in nature, so his legs made excellent targets. Switching to the Bending Knee Turning Ankle techniques, his feet moved in unexpected ways, nimbly dodging the Elf's grasping clawed fingers. Retreating rapidly, Feihyon turned and ran up the nearest wall, using his feet to hold himself inverted beneath the support boards of the floor above, and suddenly Elgerion found himself beneath a storm of raining palm strikes.

Elgerion could not find a single direction to find respite, and somehow Feihyon kept his footing on the ceiling, moving to intercept every attempted withdraw. Bereft of a target for his attacks, the Mer was forced to straighten his posture and defend against Feihyon's palm strikes head-on, and this simple adjustment destroyed the Last Ruinous Poem, for the cost of the stance's unique, indefensible strikes was a narrow specificity, and now Elgerion's balance was disrupted. He was fighting upright, and his enemy had no legs to attack.

Within moments, the Altmer had already used every attack in his stance, and began to repeat stances Feihyon had already seen and memorized. Feihyon had gone so far as to avoid pressing an opening, thinking that the Altmer soldier feared trickery and so he did not submit, but Elgerion threw himself back into battle every time. It didn't take long for Feihyon to realize why the Altmer had not chosen to switch to a new, unexpected stance: The Last Ruinous Poem was the most powerful stance he knew.

Elgerion had chosen to open with his strongest offensive, betting on humiliating his foe with a quick, easy win. And now that the greatest of the Mer's techniques had proven ineffective, Feihyon knew his opponent comprehended the inevitability of his own defeat, but to his bewilderment Elgerion continued to fight, exhaustion slowing every successive strike.

In a fit of concern, Feihyon used the Screaming Phoenix Talon hold, tangling his opponent in joint locks and pressure holds and lifting him bodily off the ground, pulling him up, closer still, until he could whisper in the Mer's ear.

"Stop this," Feihyon hissed. "You've nothing left, brother. Stop this childishness."

"Never!" growled Elgerion, struggling, his legs kicking in the air. "You are no brother of I. You dream to be the dirt I trod upon!"

"You can learn from this. Surrender... return to fight another day."

"Death first!" barked the Mer. "And you have not the will to grant it!"

Feihyon held him there for a moment longer before he let him go. He had first found Elgerion's condescension amusing, like a small dog with a loud bark, but now that unfounded sense of superiority tugged at his bad thread.

"It does not grieve me to kill..." Feihyon declared as he reversed his inverted attraction, descending lightly to the ground, "for death does not exist." Clapping his hands together, he began the Burning Mist Palm technique, and his palms erupted with caustic green vapors. He swatted away Elgerion's first few weary attacks without effort, as his calculation allowed him to see the strikes when they were still only ideas in Elgerion's muscle-mind, not yet grown into thought. At a whim, he created an opening through which he attacked the Altmer's midsection with both palms, his acidic energy infecting the Elven steel, destroying it from the inside, and Elgerion stumbled back, clawing at the plates, divesting himself of his nation's protection and rank.

Even though he now wore little more than a doublet, Elgerion once more took up his suicide, and Feihyon granted it to him, meeting Elgerion's left-handed clawing blow with his own right palm.

The two fighters froze, and Elgerion put every last shred of his inner strength into his strike. He pushed, and behind the push he put everything he had; his entire self, leaving nothing behind for a second strike. And Feihyon, with the effort of a sigh, shattered the force into dust, and because of the hunger Elgerion had left, Feihyon's caustic radiation flooded into the Mer's palm.

Elgerion stumbled back, his shout of surprise followed by a scream of realization as he felt the energy's initial stochastic transmutation of his body. His hand spasmed, and he stumbled into the center of the Inn, his left hand stretched far and away as though he could somehow distance himself from his own flesh. The skin on his hand turned pale and clammy as greenish vessels grew down his wrist, and the meat of his fingers quickly turned bruised, then black, before flaking off.

Feihyon spoke to the stumbling Mer, "We Redguard learn from a young age to clothe ourselves properly before standing in the heat of the sun. And now you also learn: do not stand before the Tremor unwrapped in namjar discipline."

Elgerion did not likely hear the words over the sound of his own screams. Poisonous Tremor crept slowly up his arm, reaching his elbow, and behind even the Altmer's bones were turning to dust.

So in a fit of desperation, Elgerion swept up a fallen comrade's sword and with swift decision cleaved his left arm from his body.

Feihyon and Janis watched wide-eyed as the Mer frantically punched at his chest, activating pressure points and closing seals in his vessels until the red spray slowed to a trickle. Pale and near death, he collapsed on the floor near his fellow soldiers, and several of the less injured Thalmor warriors fell about their wounded leader and worked quickly with makeshift bandages to dress the stump while nearby the severed limb quickly dissolved into a hissing pile of black ashes.

Feihyon thought to move and take the Mer's life while he still could, but Janis placed a hand on his chest to stop him, so he just stood and watched as Elgerion's men helped him stand. The one-armed Mer stopped his men before the exit and turned, pale and near-death, to stare into the eyes of the two monks one last time.

And in his eyes, Feihyon did saw not resignation nor defeat, but confidence.

Customers shuffled their chairs and tables back into place and frayed conversations began again as the Inn of the Four Gardens smoothed its jarred nerves. Janis began to unwrap his arms and smiled dryly at Feihyon's expression.

"You lost."

"How?" Feihyon snorted, gesturing to the pile of ash an employee was sweeping into a bin. "His arm's off."

"You tried to kill him, and you failed. A duel is won and lost by skill, Feihyon, but in a war, in a fight to the death... These things are tests of will. And his will to live was greater than your will to take his life."

"But to survive at such a cost... Isn't there a wrong way to fight, even in war? What of honor?"

Janis unwrapped his hands quietly for a moment. "Yes, perhaps. But you see that Aldmer's actions as dishonorable. Never turn your face on death. You can win badly, but you can only lose well."

"I shall have to think on that," Feihyon replied.


End file.
